Roger Hanson

Roger Weightman Hanson (27 August 1827-4 January 1863) was a Brigadier-General of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Biography
Roger Weightman Hanson was born in Clark County, Kentucky in 1827, the son of a Swedish immigrant attorney, Samuel Hanson and a Dixie mother, Matilda Calloway. Hanson served in the US Army during the Mexican-American War, and he was cited for bravery at the Battle of Cerro Gordo. He worked as a lawyer and a member of the Kentucky state legislature, and he attempted to run for the US House of Representatives for the 8th district; in 1860, he was one of the electors of the Electoral College from Kentucky.

When the American Civil War broke out, Hanson raised the Confederate States Army's "Orphan Brigade", so-called because it was unable to return home to Lexington, Kentucky until the Confederacy took the city. He was captured at Fort Donelson in 1862 and later exchanged, and he was promoted to Brigadier-General in late 1862. In his first battle as a general, Stones River, Hanson was struck above the knee by a spent artillery shell fuse, mortally wounding him. He could not stop the bleeding, and he died on 4 January 1863.